Skills beyond school

The UNESCO/OECD Australia Forum in Sydney was held in Sydney from 11-12 October 2004. This was the third and final in a series of forums covering different aspects of trade in education services and hosted in three different geo-political regions. The first forum was held in May 2002 in Washington D.C., USA and the second in Trondheim, Norway in November 2003. The UNESCO/OECD Australia Forum had an Asia Pacific flavour and its theme was Building Capacity for Post Secondary Education through Cross-Border Provision. Three cross-cutting themes focused on:

trade capacity building – promoting understanding of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the trade negotiation process; and

building capacity in quality assurance and accreditation in higher education particularly in the Asia Pacific region.

The overall aim was to bring together all the main stakeholders who had an active role in internationalisation and trade activities in education and training, to have an open exchange of views on the issues involved. In the plenary sessions, speakers representing different stakeholders, countries and international organisations contributed a broad range of perspectives. For additional information, please see the Australian website: http://www.dest.gov.au/unesco-oecd/australiaforum.htm